tshirt

Every time Fanless and I go to a concert we see a lot of kids wearing this shirt.

I looked it up online and found the website the shirt comes from and the meaning behind the message. It’s way too long to get into but here is the Reader’s Digest version: some chick is suicidal and drug-addicted, she cuts herself, meets some guy, tells him the story, he helps her rehabilitate, then starts this website to raise money for suicide prevention.

It’s a great story. It’s a great cause. The whole thing is greater than great and I am 100% behind it.

However, let’s get serious. Teenagers are fickle and this is the hip charity trend du jour. A couple of years ago it was Bono’s (RED) campaign. Before that it was rubber bracelets for the disease of the month club. I’m pretty sure this is going to lose momentum sooner rather than later.

But I digress.

So this past Saturday Fanless and I are the Vans Warped Tour and I notice the guitarist from Just Surrender wearing this shirt. I point it out to Fanless and we both think it’s pretty funny. It’s satire. It’s parody. It’s a JOKE, obviously.

Fanless wants to get one of these shirts (of course) and as we walk around the vendor booths at Warped I notice the shirt is nowhere to be found. He looks for it online the following day and finds the MySpace page for the tshirt company, Teenage Hippo Clothing. Along with the shirt, he finds this story from THC:

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Adult Cut Plus AKA What Happened on Warped

(This is all subject to first-hand speculation)
I don’t know if you heard, but your almighty teenage hippo crew got kicked off of Warped Tour for our parody of a certain popular industry shirt. Everyone on the tour loved it, even though they couldn’t pubicly(sp.) admit that they did. We took it down and “stopped” selling it after a request from an organizer on only the first day, but even though we complied, we were told the next day that unless we conformed to a set of their rules, paid these extravvagant fees ($250/Day), AND stopped selling that shirt, we would have to leave the tour or find someone to let us sell from their booth. We decided that we would rather leave, than make someone else on the tour a pariah for helping us, but before we left a few bands, that I probably shouldn’t mention, came by and requested the shirt, and lots of merch and crew guys picked it up, too. Apparently, though no one likes the guy who runs the organization that we parodied very much, they all don’t want to upset him at all… to be perfectly honest, niether do we, the shirt is a joke, a very, very, very, very funny joke, and it should be taken with a grain of salt, unless you have high blood pressure like me, in that case take it with your dieuretic and blood thinners. Anyway, go grab one on teenagehippo.com, tell your friends about it, and teach the industry to have a sense of humor, it’s about time to stop hating or cutting and giggle more instead.

P.S. I can’t believe I got my hair cut at Fantastic Sams for this…

Okay, now, to me, this is just ridiculous. Hey, music execs and Warped tour organizers: guess what? It’s just a joke!